


hooked on all these feelings

by xx_bittersweet_merlin



Series: naruto wlw fics [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Coming Out, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, M/M, Multi, just gays being gay that's the whole plot, let's just assume everyone lived, literally the whole Konoha 12 is gay or bi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 14:41:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xx_bittersweet_merlin/pseuds/xx_bittersweet_merlin
Summary: Ino felt alone when she realized she liked girls. What she didn't know was that pretty much her whole friend group was just as gay as her.She goes from being nervous to tell her friends to "Yamanaka Ino, will you marry me?"





	hooked on all these feelings

**Author's Note:**

> the token gay friend trope is a lie. we gather together like magnets in a cold heteronormative world my friends

Gayness in the shinobi world was a silent thing. It wasn’t as if most of the population scorned it- they just acted as if it didn’t exist and quietly looked aside when they saw it, whether it was with a disapproving frown or an accepting smile. It was assumed that most men liked women and most women liked men and any random person you met on the street fell into that category. Most of them hadn’t considered they were any different until they’d grown up.

After the war, the world was a more accepting place all-around, but it was still difficult because Ino knew _no one_ who shared her…qualities. She didn’t have any wizened adults around her that could listen to her troubles that they’d gone through in their youth with a smile.

She felt alone.

The first time she told someone, she was seventeen and sitting on Shikamaru’s bed as he laid on the floor with his eyes closed. It was the middle of summer and the heating in his house was out. She used a fan she made sure to carry around for the purpose to keep herself cool, and they would have moved to her house if they had the motivation to walk across the village in the heat.

A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead.

“H-Hey, Shikamaru?”

“Hmm,” her friend of who knew how many years hummed. Ino opened her mouth and paused. She’d never said it out loud before. _I think I’m a les-_ No, that word was too scary. She didn’t want to say it.

She still remembered when she’d had a crush on Sasuke. Had she liked him, or the idea of him? She’d often gushed over the idea of him fighting over her with Sai, yet she had always subconsciously shied away from any fantasies that went deeper, of thinking of their hands touching her.

One time, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, she’d thought about having someone to celebrate it with, to give her a happy birthday kiss; she’d laid back on her bed and envisioned soft-looking lips and delicate skin and hadn’t even noticed because it came so easy to her. If the person in her dreams had pink hair, she wouldn’t admit it.

She fell silent for several minutes and Shikamaru didn’t push her. She hesitantly glanced down at him- someone she trusted more than anyone in the world- “I, I think I like…girls.”

The sound of the fan he had plugged in was the only noise in the room for several prolonged moments of silence. Ino didn’t react; she didn’t even notice it.

Shikamaru opened his eyes and blinked at her. His eyebrows drew together and he opened his mouth, then reconsidered what he was going to say. “…yeah,” he finally said.

Ino raised her eyebrows hopefully. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said again. He looked like he was chewing over what to say next. “Me and Choji, you know…”

It took her a while to get what he meant. “You mean- you two- for how long?”

He shrugged at her. “I dunno. A while? Since before the war. We don’t really do a lot of that lovey-dovey couple stuff, we just…”

Ino understood. Shikamaru and Choji had been best friends since they were kids. They were partners in a way she wasn’t with either of them despite being on the same team. They spent every spare moment together- the only reason they weren’t together now was because the Akimichi was out on a mission. She couldn’t imagine either one of them spending the rest of their life with anyone else.

“Yeah,” she said, and they both fell back into silence.

* * *

 

The next person she told was, surprisingly, Naruto.

The hotspots for people like Ino were largely unnoticed by straight eyes. They looked unassuming, like any other place in the village, and she wouldn’t have found them if Shikamaru hadn’t given her directions.

As of right now, she was in one of those hotspots, a small bookstore nestled within the winding streets of the markets. The bookshelves stretched beyond the top of her head and two were set at the front, hiding everyone within from prying eyes. The first few aisles were full of general books- non-fiction, history, cookbooks, popular adventure novels, a few Icha Icha volumes. The store then transitioned into another room through a doorway with a curtain over it, where it was made like a small library, with the bookshelves situated around a sitting area with a few low tables and cushions. There weren’t any signs or labels, but Ino had learned her way around quickly enough.

She spent nearly half an hour in an aisle aimed at people like her- women who liked women- before settling on the first three volumes of a manga Shikamaru had recommended to her. She had no idea why he had a recommendation for women- maybe he just knew more gay people than her?- but he’d assured her that nothing in this store would be like “that trash you find in store windows.” Considering the author photo on the back featured a woman with another woman holding her hand, both wearing smiles as they gazed into each other’s eyes, she was glad she wasn’t going to find anything written by any straight men in this section.

She stepped out of the aisle and turned to head towards the front desk. As soon as she did, she ran into someone coming out of the aisle next to hers, which she knew was filled with material aimed at gay men.

“N-Naruto?” she stammered, eyes going wide. He was four inches taller than her, but in that moment he looked like he’d hunkered down into half her height.

“I-Ino!” he laughed anxiously, hurriedly trying to hide the book in his hands. The cover was outlined in green- she recognized it because she’d seen it in Shikamaru’s desk. “Um, I was lost, so I-”

“I-it’s okay,” Ino interrupted him, then winced at her own loudness and lowered her voice. “I’m, uh…I’m here for that too.”

“Huh?” He gazed at her with confused eyes and she held up the small stack of books in her arms with a blush, staring at the floor. “Oh… _oh_. You mean you’re-?” His eyes went wide.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Oh. I, uh. Me too.” They stood there in tense, uncomfortable silence for a minute. “I…I’m gay.”

Hearing someone say the words- even if he sounded unsure and nervous- made something bloom in her. She offered him a shaky smile. “Me too.”

He smiled back. “I’ll- I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” she said, smile growing into a confident grin. “See you around.”

* * *

 

The second place Shikamaru told her about, he actually took her to, over a year after her visits to the bookstore started. He showed up at Ino’s house at nine o’clock at night with casual attire on and told her to hurry up and change out of her pajamas because waiting was troublesome.

The path they took winded through the village to a part she’d never been to before and to a large two-story building that sat amidst several three-story buildings, making it seem secluded even though that portion of town had many different stores and such. She stood on the sidewalk and gazed up at it with a questioning frown; she could hear the faint sound of music from within, and occasionally she saw colored lights flash by the windows. “What is this place?”

“You’ll see,” Shikamaru told her with a small smirk. He gestured for her to follow him inside.

The inside was similar to a few other nightclubs she’d been in. The bulk of the first floor was empty to make room for dancing, though there were several platforms dotted about she could see people dancing on, and there was a bar downstairs and upstairs. The upper level wrapped around the outside edge of the building and left the inside airspace clear. There were several groups of sofas sat around small tables for a calmer experience; the closer she got to the dance floor the louder the music got.

“Hey, Ino!” Tenten grabbed her out of nowhere with a wide smile. “Good to see you here!”

“Um, yeah,” Ino laughed, where ‘here’ was becoming apparent when she realized where most of the patrons’ individual attentions were. “I’ve never been before.”

“It’s fun! You can get some snacks from the bar upstairs if you get hungry,” Tenten, the saint, advised her. “You don’t have to dance the first time. Just have fun!”

“W-who else is here?” Ino asked, because now that she knew that not just one, but four people in her life were gay- or bi- or maybe Tenten was something else- she felt a curious pull to find out who else was.

“Well, let’s see.” Tenten turned and scanned the room. Ino followed her light of sight, looking for anyone she recognized. “There’s Shikamaru and Choji-” Apparently she hadn’t seen her and Shikamaru come in together, seeing as he’d immediately hightailed it away, the bastard. She pointed to a booth along the wall upstairs where Shikamaru was sliding in to sit next to Choji, who greeted him with a smile. Across from them was Hinata, who sat sipping on some drink in a fancy glass through a swirly straw and fiddling with her napkin. “Hinata met this really nice girl who lives with a bunch of cats last night. We’re trying to convince her to ask her to dance,” Tenten told her with a grin.

It made sense that Hinata liked girls, Ino thought. She seemed like she would like a soft, feminine partner.

“Ah, and there’s Kiba,” Tenten said, drawing Ino’s gaze to where the Inuzuka was dancing in the crowd. He looked to be dancing with a shinobi he seemed to know, his hands on Kiba’s hips, wearing a grin that showed off his canines. “He knows that girl Hinata likes, actually. I think they dated once. I should ask him to hook them up.” She rubbed her chin with a gleam in her eye. Ino elbowed her with a soft smirk. “Oh, right! Lee should be-”

A loud cry made Ino jump. Apparently used to it, Tenten turned and just groaned at the sight of Lee hanging off one of the poles on one of the platforms, trying to undo the scarf around his neck. He’d evidently had too much to drink, because he was failing spectacularly. “For youth, Neji!” he screamed at the top of his lungs while Neji, with a hand over his face, tried to pull him down and mumbled apologies that no one heeded; they were too busy laughing or egging Lee on. He finally got ahold of his fellow jounin and yanked him down to haul off towards the restrooms, probably to splash water onto his face. Ino didn’t miss the careful way he held him and how Lee wrapped himself around his ‘youthful rival’ and babbled as they left the dance floor.

“Wow. I wasn’t expecting those two to be together.”

Tenten giggled. There was a slight rosy flush to her cheeks that told Ino she’d probably had one or two drinks herself, though she wasn’t yet tipsy. “Neither was I, but at least Neji’s the one who has to deal with his drunken escapades now instead of me. You know, Shino should be around here somewhere too, but I can never find him. I’m pretty sure he refuses to go on a date with someone unless they manage to notice him lurking here in the shadows.”

Ino couldn’t believed she hadn’t noticed that this many of her friends were similarly inclined to her. “I guess I’m gonna go upstairs,” she said, eyeing the crowd. She could definitely do this, she told herself. She was her team’s social butterfly.

Tenten opened her mouth to respond when a tall figure slipped through the people around them and stopped in front of them with a smirk. “Hey, hot stuff. Wanna dance with me?” Temari asked with a needling grin.

Tenten smirked back. “Are you sure you can keep up with me?”

“I think that’s the question I should be asking.”

“Let’s go find out, then.” Tenten waved at Ino over her shoulder and took Temari’s hand. Ino smiled to herself and weaved through groups of dancing people to reach the stairs. She jogged up to the second level and began making her way towards the bar.

More than one woman there smiled at her- and she knew the smile because she’d worn it herself; that was her flirty smile. There was an almost permanent flush to her cheeks by the time she found where most of her friends had congregated. Drink in hand, she paused at the edge of a sofa where Kiba now sat with his arm around the man she’d seen him with downstairs, rambling on about something to do with cats versus dogs while a few others on the couches rolled their eyes.

Who she could only assume was the girl Tenten had mentioned now sat, thighs touching, next to Hinata, whose face held a tomato-red hue. She was arguing with Kiba, gesturing wildly with the hand that wasn’t resting over Hinata’s. Tenten also sat on their sofa, eating from a small bowl of pretzels; Lee had calmed down enough to fall asleep laid out across Neji’s lap and taking up a whole couch of their own. Sai sat beside Kiba drawing something that Ino took one look at and blushed at; it looked like it belonged in some of the higher-rated manga she’d seen in the bookstore.

Even Naruto and Sasuke were there. Sasuke, who was, surprisingly, looking as if he was starting to relax. No one looked twice at them. She watched the slow progress he made as he wound his hand through Naruto’s, edging closer to him, even starting to lean against him when he realized no one was going to notice or care.

 _Is everyone I know gay?_ Ino thought. It all felt surreal. She leaned against one of the sofas so she wasn’t standing there awkwardly and just sat observing them all. Naruto and Sasuke were whispering to each other now; the Uchiha’s face had gone red and Naruto was grinning. Kiba demanded that Hinata settle the argument; she glanced at the girl beside her and mumbled out that she liked both, but cats were particularly nice (didn’t the Hyuuga have a cat?), which made the cat-girl grin and cheer as Kiba groaned and threw himself back against the sofa. His companion snickered at his expense and patted his arm.

This was nice. It was _really_ nice. Ino felt like she belonged here.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She pushed off from the couch and turned around, then froze. Sakura stood there, wearing a sleeveless black button-up that hugged her curves and showed off her toned arms, smiling at Ino like she knew a secret Ino didn’t. “I haven’t seen you since that mission to the Land of Spring,” she said, only having to raise her voice slightly above the volume of a normal conversation to be heard. The music coming through the speakers was something by a female artist whose albums Ino had discovered and started buying religiously. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m, I’m good,” Ino stammered, momentarily caught up in her friend’s eyes. They were the prettiest green she’d ever seen. She realized what she’d said and slapped herself mentally. “I mean, I’m great! How are you?”

Sakura shrugged. “You know how it is,” she laughed, and Ino wanted to bottle up the sound so she could listen to it whenever she wanted to. “Go on missions, work at the hospital, go home. It’s nice to have a place to relax, you know?”

“Yeah,” Ino replied, cursing herself again. Why was she tongue-tied so easily around Sakura? She used to be the more confident one, the one who always had a quip or remark ready.

Sakura tilted her head. “I love this song,” she exclaimed. “Wanna go dance?”

Did she mean together? Did she mean just dance alongside each other as friends?

“Yeah,” Ino called over the music, which had picked up in volume. Sakura grinned, grabbed her hand, and started leading her towards the stairs. Ino set her glass down on a table as they passed by.

When they reached the center of the floor, Sakura turned and gave her another beaming smile before grabbing Ino’s hands and simply swaying to the tune. Ino had danced to it in her room a hundred times. Sakura flipped her hair dramatically as she moved back and forth, and Ino laughed, moving in closer. _It was just Sakura._

“You should come more often, Ino,” Sakura yelled, eyes sparkling. They looked more like they were just messing around than dancing. She giggled when Ino twirled her. “I want to see you more.”

“Me too,” Ino shouted, grinning. The music started to slow down, and they moved closer to sway together, giggling under their breaths. It reminded her of when they were both only children, before their rivalry over Sasuke had broken them apart, when they would go to Ino’s house and dance in her room as a record played. Why had she ever pushed Sakura away in the first place?

She hadn’t realized they’d been drifting closer and closer together until they were almost touching skin. She leaned her forehead against Sakura’s and closed her eyes. _Not really just friends._

“Hey, Ino,” Sakura said, voice soft. “I really wanna see you more.”

“Me, too,” Ino replied, almost automatically.

She could feel Sakura’s breath mixing with hers. She wondered how many times she’d thought about them doing this and tried to forget about it. She thought of Sakura’s hands running through her hair, down her sides, across her shoulders.

“Hey, Ino,” Sakura breathed, making her open her eyes. She looked her friend straight in the eyes. “Will you go on a date with me?”

Ino stared back at her, still swaying to the music, and smiled. “Yeah.”

Sakura lit up. She cupped Ino’s face between her hands and leaned in, kissing her under the flashing lights.

“Yeah!” Tenten yelled from above, while Lee shouted something about youth. “Get it!”

The two broke apart due to their laughter. Ino rested her head on Sakura’s shoulder and closed her eyes as a content smile spread across her face. She didn’t feel alone anymore.

* * *

 

“Honestly, you need to do _something_ just for you guys once in a while,” Ino sniffed haughtily, making Shikamaru groan. “I get that you’re both the lowest of low maintenance, but I want cute photos, dammit!”

“All right,” Shikamaru moaned, interrupting her lecture. “We’ll go to that festival next week together, okay? What was it?” He squinted at the clouds. “Something about fireworks.” He’d only heard about it because Kiba and Shino were going as their first date. God, if Kiba was going it was going to be troublesome.

“And get barbeque!”

“We get barbeque every week.”

“Special occasions are more…special. Get dessert this time!”

He rolled his eyes at her. He was slumped over in a bench that overlooked the training grounds where Choji was sparring with Sasuke and Sakura; it was rare that they all had time off to spend together, at least during the day. “Somehow my mother still hasn’t caught on yet,” Shikamaru said with another eye-roll, more out of mildly annoyed fondness than true ire. “Despite me spending all my time with Choji. She still thinks I have a thing with Temari.”

Ino snickered. “I know someone from Team Nine who’d argue with that.” She thought of her own parents, who hadn’t really noticed the increased amount of time she spent with Sakura for two years despite catching onto the fact she had a special someone. “My mom asked if I met any special boys.”

They both shared a snicker.

“Hey, Shikamaru, Ino,” the voice of their sensei called out. They both glanced up to where he was standing on the path, hands in his pockets and an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He had been overlooking the spar, occasionally grimacing good-naturedly at how fast the younger generation was catching up, but Kakashi and Kurenai now stood behind him. “I have an A-rank to go do with these two. See you guys around.”

“Bye, sensei!” Ino called out with a shining smile.

Before they could even move to leave, Naruto came flying from down the road and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Hey, guys!” He landed on a tree branch, making both Shikamaru and Ino and those sparring pause and look up at him. “You all gonna be around tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sakura called up to him with a smirk.

“Be where?” Kakashi asked his students, a note of curiosity in his voice.

Naruto laughed and gave him a carefree smile. “Nowhere important, sensei,” he teased, and then he was leaping away again. Sasuke watched him go with a smirk.

Kakashi just gave his former students a slightly squint-eyed look before shrugging to himself. “Kids are weird, aren’t they?” he commented as Asuma watched Ino cheer Sakura on and urge her to “beat their faces in.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Really weird.”

* * *

 

“Yamanaka Ino, will you marry me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Ino said, trying not to squeal as Sakura took her hand and slid a beautiful silver ring onto it. She was knelt in front of her on the cobblestone in the village square, with people all around them, in plain view from the Hokage Tower, and Ino felt proud, not like she should hide.

Choji looked on from the sidelines and munched on a few chips. “Hey,” he said to Shikamaru, who stood with his hands in his pockets beside him, without moving his gaze away, “we should get married.”

Shikamaru continued to watch the scene with an air of laziness about him. “Sure.”

Ino let herself squeal and jumped up and down after the ring was safely on her hand. Somewhere behind the other members of Team Ten, Lee sniffled and wiped at his face futilely. “What a beautiful display of youth,” he cried. Beside him, Neji looked as if he’d started to contemplate the idea himself.

“Speaking of,” Naruto said loudly, drawing all the attention to himself- literally, considering most in the square had stopped to watch- as he exchanged a look with Sakura. They had planned this together, after all. He turned to Sasuke, who’d been watching the proposal with a smirk, and took out a small box.

The Uchiha froze. “What are you doing?” he asked slowly.

Naruto grinned sheepishly at him and got down on one knee, opening the box that held a silver band inside. “I think it’s pretty obvious you’re my best friend and the one person I can’t live without. Uchiha Sasuke, will you marry me?”

Sasuke stared down at him with wide eyes. It was his shell-shocked expression, as his friends knew. He swallowed before opening his mouth. “…yes. I’ll…marry you.”

Some of the shock was still there, but even with how blank-faced he looked the Konoha Twelve recognized his happy look when they saw it as Naruto slid the ring on.

From the now murmuring crowd as the hero of the war got engaged, Hinata watched with a smile, hand entwined with Tamaki’s. “We’re gonna have to work hard to top this,” Tamaki joked, making her laugh.

“You can say that again,” Tenten snickered from beside them.

Ino wrapped her arms around her girlfriend- no, her fiancée’s- neck. Sakura giggled at her. “I guess we’re gonna spend a lot more time together now, huh?”

Ino pressed their foreheads together and smiled. “Yeah.”

She wasn’t going to hide her relationship or treat it as something that had to be left unsaid or in the shadows. She was going to love Sakura with all her heart, out in the open. She wasn’t going to wait for the world to catch up. She was going to drag it into the new age where it belonged.

(She also had to thank Naruto, for hilariously singlehandedly forcing marriage equality onto the village by proposing loudly and in public. The next week she heard shouted proposals in the street practically everywhere she went. She also got a wedding invite from Izumo and Kotetsu, who had a _syrup-fountain_ at their wedding. Who even did that?)


End file.
